


Feel It Twice

by andathousandyearsmore



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers as family, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Fluff, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21773407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andathousandyearsmore/pseuds/andathousandyearsmore
Summary: After SHIELDRA, after finding the twins in an old HYDRA bunker, after Bucky coming to them, after hearing about Ross and his Accords, after realizing that Bucky—sorry, James—hates him, Steve’s tired. Dead tired, like sometimes he’s walking around without a soul.
Relationships: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 34
Collections: Stucky Secret Santa 2019





	1. hurts me to hurt you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuk/gifts).



> for the lovely kumeko, who has requested a fic with our favorite idiots bandaging each other, helping each other through nightmares, hurt/comfort, and found family, with handfuls of natasha and sam being fantastic
> 
> and me, head over heels for the prompt as i was, kind of let this run its distance with Camila Cabello’s sing playing in the background

People always think that he jolts awake in the middle of the night to the sound of his own screaming, heaving and gasping for a breath he hasn’t had while encased in ice. Or they don’t think he has problems at all, despite fighting in a war and being displaced in time and losing everyone he has ever loved. Steve has half a mind to say something to them and go on a rant about how everyone can take their assumptions about him and shove them somewhere unsavoury. But that wouldn’t be proper for a man like him from the polite and well-mannered 40’s, would it? 

Every pamphlet, website, person, and book he has consulted say that people who suffer from PTSD—the name change is to apparently legitimize the disorder, apparently, but Steve may never understand why there are so many acronyms in the future—have violent nightmares that make them thrash about in their sleep. There is nothing that suggests anything different. Like this, it is very easy to believe that Steve actually may not have any problems. It’s very easy to assume that Steve lives a problem-less life outside of fighting with the Avengers. 

But he doesn’t. Steve wakes up with the ghost of fear and the ghost of guilt lingering in the back of his mind like he’s the soldier version of Ebenezer Scrooge. He feels echoes of things he cannot quite remember dreaming of, like maybe the sounds of a gunshot, but that isn’t quite right either. In war, soon enough, the sound of gunshots turn into little bursts of white noise and ambience, things the mind blocks out until everything is over. Steve wakes up, and he feels like dead weight about to sink through a cloud. He can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything but vainly chase flashes of nightmares that he had just dreamed. 

Some days, Steve wakes up and he knows that he hasn’t dreamt a single thing, because he doesn’t feel the urge to crawl out of his own skin. Other days, on the second he can muster up the energy to get out of bed, he can’t get in the shower fast enough, all too eager to purge something intangible from his skin. Some days he leaves the shower with pink skin, and other days he doesn’t. Some days he remembers the aloe vera, but others he leaves the serum to it, since the serum works its magic in the time it takes to go to the Compound kitchen for breakfast. 

The dreams haunt him, but not _knowing_ fills his veins and arteries with an ironclad disquiet that travels from head to toe, as if someone could cut him open and all they would see is the colour of a ghost’s curse. It has to be karmic retribution, for the innumerable amount of times that he’s quoted _I’ll think about it tomorrow_ to himself, like he’s some sort of tragic male Scarlet O’Hara. But the dreams, they don’t resurface to his mind. There is no tomorrow, and tomorrow is not another day. 

To everyone else, he looks fine. His voice isn’t raspy with the screams of all those that died in the war and his eyes aren’t red with blood or no sleep. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t jerk in his sleep, doesn’t have a red flag to show at night. So no one asks him about it, and that is all he wants. PTSD is all too real, but that doesn’t explain what’s happening to _Steve_. And it doesn’t matter anyway, not when he has the world to worry. 

Well, at least, his world. His currently-avoiding-him-at-all-cost-world. 

Steve stumbles over to the kitchen, his mind playing a loop of white noise punctuated by fuzziness. He can’t shake it, lost in trying to grasp the edge of the fuzziness, to maybe pull off the covers and reveal just what is plaguing him. As a result, he bumps into a counter, finally snapping out of his stupor. But the noise persists, and he frowns, now trying to blink it away. He’s vaguely aware that he is hungry, and of the happenings around him. 

He startles again when Clint claps his hands in front of his face. “Steve,” Clint says, looking at him like he’s been trying to get Steve’s attention for a while. Steve winces; for _how_ long, exactly? “You good, man? Sam’s been asking you why there’s crusted blood on your jaw.” 

On reflex, Steve brings his hand up to his jaw and all but pulls off what does appear to be a tiny scab of blood. “Oh,” he responds, shrugging and walking over to a trash can to stop it in there. “I was shaving.” 

“You seem out of it,” Sam observes, his voice a touch too casual. He’s eating a muffin: one of those carrot cake muffins that are really good. Steve decides to grab one after his calorie smoothie. “Sleep weird?”

“Mm,” Steve nods, rubbing his face and messing up his hair a little, trying one last time to snap out of the echoes. He opens the fridge and pulls out a calorie packet, then a gallon of milk. Ambling over to a cabinet so he can grab a glass, he mumbles out, “Strange night.” He doesn’t get any questions after that, as he pours out milk and mixes it with the calorie packet, but Steve, looking back, should have known better than to trust a silence. 

“Strange like you dreamt that you were in a parallel universe or strange like oh my god everything is slightly one inch to the left?” Clint asks after a long five minutes, two oddly specific scenarios that are both hopelessly wrong. 

Steve pauses and sets the now empty glass down, the question throwing him off at the absurdity of it. “Just strange,” he says, because it’s the honest truth. All of it has been strange. If he wants to truly think about it, the past two and a half years have been strange, from the moment he woke up and knew what it was like to be frozen in ice as a dozen people tried to warm him up. If he goes even deeper into his past, his life has been strange ever since Schmidt peeled his face off, or since he stepped out of a chamber of bad decisions and felt the world come alive. 

Being completely honest, maybe he hasn’t ever lived a normal life, not normal to anyone’s standards at any point. Steve has always been too angry, too feisty, to willing to pick a fight, too bloodthirsty, too determined, too moraled and principled. Every aspect about him is too much, like every vile creature flowing out of Pandora’s box and hitting the world at the same time. It’s too much, and there’s nothing but trouble that follows. 

He pauses, startling himself as another ghost of a feeling washes over him, something not concrete and yet... terrifying. Without another word, he puts his glass in the sink and leaves the kitchen, trapped between wanting to chase terror until it turns to horror or letting feelings rest without letting the malaise bother him. 

“Oh _god_ ,” Steve says to no one in particular, for no particular reason, but he thinks that this is the truest thing he has ever said.

In a hurry to reach the elevator, just so that he can take it up to his room and claim a day off to sleep, he doesn’t watch where he is going. Why would he? Steve has the layout of the Compund memorized, and not even because of the serum’s perfect memory. But, since not even a perfect memory can account for other people, he collides into Bucky. Or, technically, _James_. 

“Sorry,” Steve mumbles, looking James in the eye and hurriedly looking away, unable to see those grey eyes look back with anger and confusion. “I’ll be out of your way. Sorry.” He swallows once, looking down, and misses the way that James watches hiss throat bob. 

He steps to the left, intending to give James his space, but the other man blocks him, stepping left as well. Steve looks up sharply at that, and while maintaining a confused eye contact, steps right. James steps right again, blocking him once more. Whilst Steve tries to figure out why, he sees that James’s face is expressionless. It reminds him of a time when Bucky played a long joke on him only to steal his chocolate in the end, but there is no way that James is about to do anything of the sort to him. So Steve steps left, left, and right, in that exact order, only to be blocked each time. 

This time, Steve shakes out of his dreamsleep stupor and sighs in frustration. He shoves James slightly, just to get the other man out of his way, and tries not to feel bad about having to push him. This isn’t Bucky, and Steve isn’t about to let himself feel anything over a man who doesn’t really want to do anything with him. 

He makes it past James, only to be yanked by a metal hand pulling his wrist. In a swift movement, James has pulled him to face him, and now they were very close. Too close, really. Far, far too close for anyone to be really, unless they were platonically or romantically used to being intimate. 

“We were together, weren’t we?” James asks quietly, voice heavy and slightly raspy with disuse in the past few days. Steve looks away again, pursing his lips tightly. He has had his suspicions about what James could have remembered, but hearing was another beast altogether. 

Steve has half a mind to lie and say no, or to be difficult and tell James that maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. But long ago, before James had forcibly given Steve a reminder to call him James, before James had told him that he wanted to do nothing with Steve, before James had run away for a month until Natasha brought him in and promised that Steve would stay away, before any of this mess, Steve had once promised to answer any of James’s questions. 

“So what if we were?” Steve asks, turning his wrist slightly and experimenting with how tightly James has a hold on it. They have all suspected that Zola had made James’s serum to enhance his strength to be stronger than even Steve, but no one has proof yet. But right now, it is true. Even though Steve is tired beyond his years currently, he probably can’t fight this grip at full strength. “What’s it to you?” 

“You never mentioned it,” James says accusingly, as if it is life-shattering information that changes even a single thing for him. 

Steve huffs bitterly, wondering what would happen if he actually tries to fight James to let him go. “Right, was I supposed to mention that before or after I told you your mother’s name?” The day that James—or Bucky, at the time—had asked for his mother's name was the day that Bucky had decided he wanted to try out being called James. It was a cheap blow, but no one calls Steve kind when he is tired. 

Something flashes across James’s face, something that Natasha could detect, but not Steve. 

“Feel like it’s the kind of thing you mention. You know, family, lovers, job, hobbies, things like that. Ain’t that what you tell a normal amnesiac?” James looks like he wants to say something else, but switches gears. “No one else knows. Why?” 

“Oh, even _better_ ,” Steve snarks, knowing that he sounds half-hysterical and half-bitter. “Let me just tell my entire team that the man who hates my face used to be the one that kissed it. Yeah, of course, when I plunged that fucking plane and forgot to fight him on a Helicarrier, oops, I still thought he loved me. My mistake. I’ll just set myself up like a fool.”

James suddenly backs off, loosening his grip on Steve’s wrist, and then letting go of it further. 

For once in the last few months, Steve takes a step towards James, right in his space, tired and wholly losing all self-control. “And while we’re there, why not let them think that they have all the rights in the world to try and get us to cooperate again? Make you like me? Bet that’ll run over real well with you, having to be forced to spend time with me. I bet you’d rather eat watered down cabbage soup again. And I’ll be dying again in the back of my mind all over again, seeing someone with your face hate me. Sounds fun.” 

Realzing that he’s all but backed up into James, Steve exhales slowly, and turns his back, walking away. For a long half a minute, his footsteps are the only thing are the only thing fully discernible to his ears, to the point that he thinks that James has gone if it wasn’t for James’s breathing. But no, James is there, watching him walk away. Fine, let it be. 

Steve waits for the elevator to open for him, and almost even gets in before he hears James say, “Wait.” 

Looking up to the ceiling, as if to ask JARVIS to hold the elevator, Steve stills like the idiot he is. He waits just like James asked. “What?” 

“I don’t think I hate you,” James says far too quietly for unenhanced ears to pick that up. 

Steve laughs, except that it resembles a laugh in the way a skunk might resemble a raccoon. Only to someone who didn’t know any better. “How reassuring.” And then he steps into the elevator, taking it up.


	2. lying awake

Steve wakes up, and the feeling he had from morning seems to have disappeared completely. What remains, unfortunately, is the discomfort his back has from sleeping on his couch instead of the bed like a normal human being. But his body is a strange thing when it comes to the sleeping experience—he has discovered sleeping on a couch is like sleeping with an eye open. It’s an alert sleep, and completely dreamless unless he seems a whole night like that. Which he may or may not have discovered from personal experience. 

Sighing and getting up, he glances over to the clock in the living room: 1 in the afternoon. He groans. Fantastic, not only has he lost his lead on his night terrors but he has also lost an entire morning. There isn’t a chance that his disappearance won’t be noticed. Then an idea comes to mind. 

“JARVIS, has anyone asked for me?” Steve asks. 

JARVIS pauses, uncharacteristic of him. “I have let everyone know that you have enabled privacy protocol in your room, Captain. Your absence has been missed.” 

Steve groans, and while looking up to the ceiling, asks, “Can I get to the gym without anyone finding me?” He already knows that the answer is no before JARVIS tells him the exact same thing. “Disable privacy protocol, then.” 

Running a hand through his hair to tame it from sticking up in every direction possible, Steve walks over to his kitchen and pours himself a glass of cold coffee from the percolator. He carefully sets it down when it’s finished, and then rests his hands down on the counter on either side of the sink, so that he’s hunched over it. Caffeine does nothing for him. Steve sighs, and looks down at cold, grey metal. 

All he can think about is another kind of cold, grey metal, except that James’s arm isn’t necessarily any of those things. It can conduct heat to mimic an actual arm, isn’t really a dull grey but rather a vibrant blue-grey with streaks of gold, and there are a bunch of wires, circuits and other technological marvels in there. His arm is extremely strong, stronger than anyone else in the Compound really. Even James’s old arm was stronger than Steve, most likely. 

He doesn’t understand any of it. Why does the man who saved him from the Potomac hate him like this? What did Steve do? But he doesn’t have a chance to mope more, not when his door opens and distinctly-Natasha footsteps walk towards his direction. 

“The timeline on the Accords are being pushed up,” Natasha informs him, and she probably looks just as unhappy about the news as she sounds. About this, no one tries to pretend how catastrophic the idea is. “And they’re just looking for a reason to blow this up farther, push it closer even more.” 

Steve shakes his head and eyes the coffee-stained cup next to him. He starts to wash it, and last night’s dishes along with it. “Then we don’t give them a reason to push it closer. Things like Ultron—and tell Tony this because he might listen to you better than me—can’t happen. I know he’s working on Project Ultron.” 

“And how exactly do you know that?” Tony asks him, voice floating over a speaker from Steve’s right, in the corner. 

He stops and stills, glaring at the corner where he also knows a camera is installed. “You know I hate it when you do that. Turn that off and come here if you’re going to talk. I’ll find that camera, don’t think I won’t.” Steve huffs, and when he’s sure Tony has shut off the camera, starts the dishes again. Now he waits for Natasha. 

“How _do_ you know about Ultron?” Natasha asks. 

Steve stops, again, and stands up straight. “Were all of you trying to hide it?” The _from me_ goes unspoken, but implied. 

“Steve,” Natasha says, on the defensive. 

“Okay,” Steve says, message received clear as day. “Fuck. Okay. Just—not until this shit with Ross blows over. Ultron is bad news waiting, if it’s ever realized.” He really does miss the days when the craziest thing science made was him. At least he couldn’t be used for bad; Steve was too stubborn for that. 

“You don’t know that,” Natasha counters, and Steve stubbornly continues to wash the dishes, unable to look at her. Maybe it’s dumb to keep your back _on_ the Black Widow, but Steve prefers real backstabbing to verbal backstabbing. He also doesn’t care, since Natasha _wouldn’t_. 

Steve almost laughs at her, rudely. “Yeah I do. Shield around the world, full control over everything... doesn’t that sound weird to you? Like a recipe for disaster? Like maybe if something goes wrong, there’s so much capacity for evil?” 

Natasha hums, thoughtful. “Would you say JARVIS has the same capacity?” 

“JARVIS would, if it weren’t for Tony,” Steve says. “Ultron, when it’s made, isn’t going to have that loyalty to Tony that keeps JARVIS from whatever that movie Tony keeps talking about is. No offense, JARVIS.” 

Nothing happens to any of the electronics on his floor, so Steve is assuming that JARVIS didn’t take any. 

“Still,” she says. “Wouldn’t you want to stop?”

“How is he doing?” Steve asks, changing the subject completely. He turns the water off, having washed all the dishes, and grabs a towel to dry them all off. It’s a cheap trick, but he is willing to talk about nearly anything else than the possibility of the future. Even if it’s selfish, and wholly unacceptable. 

“You know, we’ve all suspected,” she tells him, hopping up onto the counter. Steve can imagine her green eyes on his back still, carefully watching him. Maybe her arms are crossed, stance open but guarded. She’s trying to be kinder, though, in a style unique to her. A tough kindness, on the blunter side of the spectrum. 

Steve doesn’t let himself fall for the bait, even if he wants to. It’s his own fault for thinking she would steer the conversation anywhere but here, even if they both know that Steve would rather jump out a plane than talk about this. “Think that everyone from the queer side of the country might have, really. How is he doing?” 

“Aw, don’t flatter yourself. No one thought you would have had the courage to do something. Looking at you now, that is.” Now she’s not even trying to be kind anymore. Natasha wants something. Especially if she won’t even bother to answer his question. 

Obligingly, Steve turns around, crossing his arms and leaning back on the counter. He notices the split second of shock on her face, quickly smoothed away by her neutral face. “I think you know the answers to your questions. What do you want, Natasha?” 

“No one heard your conversation with James, if you’re asking. James asked us, after. Looked pretty shaken,” Natasha says, volunteering the information. Now he really knows she wants something. Her eyes stare directly into his, unflinching. 

“Don’t,” Steve says. “Just don’t. I don’t care.” 

Natasha says nothing, merely giving him a _look_. 

Steve sighs, looking up at the ceiling instead of her. Anywhere but her, even if won’t change a thing for how well she can read him. “I can’t afford to care,” he amends, voice breaking. 

“You’re pretending not to care,” she corrects, half-smiling. “You’re still—” 

“Natasha,” Steve warns, pushing himself off the counter, and interrupting her before she says what he’s been hiding from. Not that she’s ever been threatened by him, or listened a damn day when it hasn’t come to a mission. Sometimes, not even then. “Please.” 

She pauses, examining him for a long minute, and steps closer. Natasha hugs him, instead, catching him off-guard. 

“Don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that,” she whispers in his ear, on her toes to reach that far. They break apart when they both hear footsteps in the hallway. Tony’s. Natasha gives him a brief smile, fading the second Tony steps into view. 

“Am I interrupting something?” Tony asks, walking up to them. There’s oil in his hair and his tank top, and on those things that he calls pants. Steve actually has a theory that they used to be white, which horrified him to no end that they look like what they do now. “Wow, you look really bad.” 

“Thanks,” Steve slowly says. 

Tony opens his mouth to say something, and shuts up the second Natasha glares at him. “When the fuck did you sleep?” Tony asks instead, words obviously painful to ask in the way that he did, respectful. 

“That’s rich,” Steve tells him, turning to Natasha. “When did _he_ go to sleep?” 

“I can’t believe it,” she says. “Both of you went to sleep at an appropriate time, and yet both of you look like shit. Tony because he decided to sleep in his workshop and you because of James.” 

Tony, who now looks decidedly guilty, looks away. If he starts to whistle, Steve thinks that Tony’s about to vie for an Oscar with how hard he’s trying. Or maybe for one of those horrible acting awards, with how much he’s failing—what was it, a Raspberry? Razzie? Something like that.

“What?” Steve asks, clearing his throat. 

“Nothing,” Tony says. “Just—wow. Really? You and—OW!” He jumps, wincing as his left foot touches the ground again, when Natasha jumps off the counter and stomps on it. 

Steve shrugs. “You didn’t know him back then.” He smiles softly, looking down as a good memory hits him. But he swallows hard, and reminds himself that it’s all gone. No good dwelling on the past. _Keep it together._ “Before.” 

“Before he fell?” Tony asks, curious, setting himself up for a stomp on the right foot. 

“No,” Steve says, looking back up to Tony, losing the smile. “Before the war and that stupid draft letter. You know he told me he enlisted? Imagine my shock when he rattled off those numbers in Azzano. Wanted all of us to have a good memory of him before he died, to still love our country instead of hating the war and the draft for killing him.” 

“Kind of hard to match that with Barnes,” Tony comments, not unkindly. 

“Yeah, well,” Steve says, “I don’t blame James now. I want to. But I’d be freaked out if some guy claimed he loved someone who had my face too.” 

He’s gotten good at lying. Too good, maybe. But some days, it’s still not enough. 


	3. and everything has changed

“Cap, we’ve got a possible HYDRA base somewhere near Perth, Australia,” Maria Hill tells him the next day and five minutes later he calls the team over. The next five hours take an excruciating long time to plan out an attack and to search for why the hell HYDRA had a base in one of the most remote cities in the world. There’s no good having a base that can’t be reached easily by other people. Then again, maybe that was the goal. 

But this isn’t why Steve hates the five hours. This is the first time since James has been cleared that there’s a mission, which means there were five hours of Steve trying not to think too much about him. And five hours of figuring out where the twins could fit into their game plan. It’s been a month since they have found Pietro and Wanda in the same bunker where they found the scepter, but with training, they’ve both easily slotted into the team. Now, Steve thinks, is their chance to show HYDRA what they’be got when they’re free. 

“Alright,” Steve says, when he looks down at the plan in front of him. “Let’s get these sons of bastards.” 

* * *

Everything goes as planned. It’s almost like someone is watching after them to save them from Ross’s wrath. Whatever it is, Steve isn’t questioning it, nor will he jinx the good run by saying something. More importantly, he’s impressed with how efficiently they had gone in and out of the base, leaving nothing behind but without damage to any of the surroundings. 

By the time they touch back to the Compound, they’re all tired, but also off of the victory of a proud mission. This isn’t to say that they don’t have their basic injuries and scratches—hell, Clint broke his arm again and Natasha’s wrist isn’t looking too good—but it’s far better than any alternative. Still, he sends everyone to medical to get checked up, even though he knows what most people’s injuries are. They might have taken the quinjet, but Australia to America has never been a short flight, which means he’s had plenty of time to survey his team on the flight. 

Steve smiles to himself, after he’s shooed most people into the direction of medical. He runs up to Pietro and Wanda, who are deep in conversation currently in Sokovian, and stops them, just to congratulate them. 

“Nice job,” he says, thankful that they weren’t hurt badly—minor scrapes and for Pietro, those have even already healed—or scarred. “How are you feeling?” 

Pietro shrugs, though there’s a grin on his face as well. “Maybe this was not so bad,” he admits, tossing a look to his sister, who looks amused by the admission. “This side of the fight is perhaps not the worst.” 

Wanda, who looks like a woman who has won herself some money off of a bet, says, “He lies. Pietro liked it a lot. Maybe too much, I think. Captain, I think you made a mistake encouraging him.” 

Pietro shoves her slightly in offense. He says something to her that Steve cannot understand, and she retaliates in kind. Soon enough, they start bickering on their way to medical and Steve smiles again, walking away from them. He might have been wrapped up for a moment with Pietro and Wanda, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t noticed everything else. Or in particular, someone else. 

* * *

Freshly showered, Steve heads to the gym, where he knows someone will be. A someone who didn’t go to medical, despite wounds that Steve could discern through tactical gear. When he passes by the gym windows, seeing a figure going to town on the punching bag like Steve is known to do, he knows he’s right. 

“You know,” Steve says when he steps inside the gym, giving fair warning to James. James, who looks a lot like Steve whenever Steve’s out of his mind fighting that punching bag. He has no doubt of the flurry of thought in James’s mind. “I’m the only one who’s allowed to brood down here. With the punching bag, no less.” 

No response. Steve waits for a minute, thinking to his own state of mind when he’s like this. No response again. 

“James,” Steve says once, then twice, then thrice. No response. In a one quick motion, he catches James’s next punch and watches as James snaps out of it. “I told you to go to medical.” He slowly lets go of the other man’s flesh hand, and notices all the blood. “And not to make it worse.” 

James doesn’t say anything. Steve silently apologizes to Sam, Natasha, and even Tony for every time they’ve had to talk him away from the punching bag. He seriously owes them. 

“Okay, fine,” Steve says slowly, unhooking the punching bag and throwing it to the side, keeping his eyes on James the entire time. “Medical, let’s go. Or Bruce. Your choice.”

“No,” James grits out, wild grey eyes focusing on Steve’s face, before looking away. 

Steve stares him down, and then wonders what to do. He gets it, and he knows that he of all people probably shouldn’t force a doctor on anyone, let alone someone like James. He sighs. “Fine. Bench, sit.” 

“What?” James asks, confused. 

“Sit on the bench,” Steve says, “I’m bandaging you up, supersoldier or not, no one likes infections.” 

“No,” James repeats, flexing the metal hand. “Go away.” 

“Captain’s orders,” Steve says without question, standing his ground, “Sit down, or I’m calling Bruce. You have a GSW somewhere on your leg, for god’s sake.” 

James sullenly complies, leading Steve to curse silently. The GSW had been a complete bluff. But nevertheless, Steve walks over to grab the First Aid kit, opening it and placing it next to James on the bench. Thankfully, Tony kept one that was fully stocked, as a result of all the various injuries and accidents that happened either during training or other dumb things that just so happened to take place in the gym. Steve also got a towel and a small bowl of water.

“Hands,” Steve asks, wetting the towel and wiping away the blood on James’s hand. Then he began to disinfect it, taking care to not make it sting so much. Steve has a lot of experience in that, at least. Not even fully because of his own mishaps with the punching bag. “Steady.” 

“You’ve done this a lot,” James says, but his voice has a lilt to it that makes Steve think that he’s asking why. 

“Yeah,” Steve casually agrees, hoping that James will buy the fact that Steve didn’t hear the question laced in his words. 

“Why?” James asks, and there it was. 

Steve opens up the bandages, and says, “Had to.” Before James says anything else about their past, he adds on, “In the Howlies, Morita was the medic, but I had steady hands and Morita put me to work whenever he needed a second set of hands. Learned a lot. Dumb enough to have needed that knowledge a lot. Setting bones, bandaging, knowing how to take care of gun shot wounds, stab wounds, bruises, you name it. Dugan kept callin’ me a blond nurse.” 

“That’s not the full story,” James says, just as Steve’s done wrapping up his hand. He still can’t believe how much blood had been on it. _Damn_. 

Steve looks at him speculatively, and shrugs. “You want the full story, take off your pants. Gotta see that gun shot wound in your thigh, James.” 

“Don’t call me that,” James—or Not-James now—corrects softly. 

Steve stills, looking up from the other man’s hands to his face. He counts to five in his head, and tries not to show anything on his face that the other man can’t apparently even handle Steve calling him by his real first name. “What do you want me to call you, Barnes?” 

“Been meaning to test out Bucky again,” he says. _Bucky_. Does this mean—? Steve’s heart misses a beat, and then he shakes his head, catching a laugh. No. He can’t fall down this path again. He can’t. It’s not fair to either of them. 

“Okay,” Steve nods, “ _Bucky_. I still need your pants off.” Thirty seconds later, they’re next to the First Aid kit. 

Bucky’s legs are, to put it really nicely, a mess of bruising and bleeding and that fucking GSW to the thigh that’s more on the graze side of things, but still pretty bad. Especially for where it is. Steve looks up to Bucky, unimpressed, and gets to work. 

“Full story,” Bucky asks. 

“My ma was a nurse,” Steve says, deciding that talking while working might not be a bad idea after all. “Not sure if you remember that but—” 

“Sarah,” Bucky says slowly, like he’s just remembered it. “She loved peonies. I thought... she’s the midwife from the birth. Lottie’s birth. Her name was Charlotte?” 

Steve nods, wondering if Bucky needs stitches or not. “Yeah, MA had to help your mother out with Charlotte’s birth. She was a nurse, but Ma helped out other women in need too. Or children in need, as it turned out. Specifically, kids who got into too many fights. Me. And you, after you always came to my defense. She decided to teach both of us how to fix up ourselves. Mrs. Barnes taught us a thing or two here and there too. But I always ended up cleaning you up, and then you me. Came in handy during the war with Morita, since now I knew what things where and how to use them. But instead of a back-alley fight, it was war.” 

“Why didn’t Morita use me? To help,” Bucky asks, before hissing at a sudden contact with disinfectant and tweezers on the GSW. 

“It was mostly that you were the body he needed an extra set of hands with, or Howard whisked you away for weapons talk,” Steve responds, huffing with a laugh. “Once you cracked your skull open but you had a bullet lodged in your leg and random injuries everywhere. I think that was the first time Morita let me take care of everything that wasn’t the head injury by myself. You were out for all of it, which meant that you never believed anyone after you woke up and they told you that I fixed you up.” 

“Believe you now,” Bucky says. “Was it before or after the guy in the hotel in France?” 

“Guy who shot you there? Or the other guy in the other French hotel you slept with? Or was it the third guy in the third hotel that almost kidnapped you after trying to get you drunk?” 

Bucky stares at him, wide-eyed as best as a stone-cold terror can manage. “The first one,” he says slowly, in surprise. 

Steve hums, thinking. “After, actually. Immediately after. But two separate incidents, just really bad timing. That month, you beat me for most injuries and most dumb injuries.” 

“Okay, and what about the other two men?” Bucky asks. “I don’t remember... weren’t we together by then?” 

“We were. And we weren’t. It was... complicated. And now people would say we were in an open relationship,” Steve says vaguely, finishing up with Bucky. He points to the pants, looks at Bucky meaningfully, and then gets up.


	4. keeping our distance lately

A week passes, and it’s like that night in the gym never happened. Bucky still can’t stand Steve, and Steve’s still hopelessly trying to get over it. 

“Do you need to talk about it?” Sam asks him, later that afternoon. Steve’s shaky with the shadows of his dreams, and even more so after last week. “You haven’t looked good for the past few days.” 

“I’m just tired,” Steve tells him, shrugging, looking up to Sam from where Steve’s sitting on the couch. Sam rolls his eyes and takes the chair opposite Steve. “Really.” 

“You've been ‘just tired’ for a week. Thought you looked good the day after the mission, and then nothing,” Sam says. “What happened? Is it the whole _Bucky_ thing?” Sam gives him a _Look_ , about the name change. 

“No,” Steve says, “It’s not that. It’s nothing.” 

* * *

“Sam’s right,” Natasha says that night, cornering him when he makes himself tea at midnight. This is probably his fault for coming to the communal kitchen, but it’s always stocked with good tea. “It’s not nothing, unless James’s new name happens to be _nothing_.” 

“It’s way too late for this conversation,” Steve says. 

* * *

“I,” Sam says, gasping for air after their ‘run’, “Hate you and the way you’re using this to avoid talking.” 

“What’s up,” Steve smirks, “Can’t take it? On your left, Wilson.” 

“Fuck you,” Sam yells, long after Steve’s lapped him again, deciding to go for just one more round. 

* * *

“Thank you for the cherry tart,” Natasha tells him. “But you know you can’t bribe me from talking to you about him.” 

“Let it be,” Steve warms, glaring at her over the newspaper. “Look, I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve tried everything.” 

“I don’t want you crying on those pancakes of yours,” she says, eyeing his plate, and the two plates stacked and set across from him. One is made the way Natasha likes, the other the way Sam likes them. Two plates have been delivered to the labs of Bruce Banner and Tony Stark, and then the twins have come and gone with theirs. Thor is thankfully off-planet; Steve can never make enough for him. Vision doesn’t eat any and Rhodey is currently with the military. There’s a plate underneath a little metal dome for Bucky, after. 

“What makes you think I’ll cry?” Steve asks. 

“Your eye bags,” Natasha responds. “You’re tired and thus very susceptible. But I’m nice, so I’ll make you cry later.” 

* * *

“Don’t,” Steve says to Sam before Sam even says anything. 

“I was going to ask if you wanted to watch Clint and Natasha do a freaky circus act with knives in the gym,” Sam says. 

* * *

“Natasha,” Steve sighs when she looks at him, determined. 

“Steve,” she mimics in the same tone. 

“Natasha,” Steve says. 

“Steve,” she repeats. 

* * *

“Oh,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. “So both of you decided to corner me? How smart.” 

“I’m just saying,” Sam says. “Maybe you should—” 

“No,” Steve interrupts. “He doesn’t want to talk to me or do anything about me, with me, whatever. I can’t make someone like me just because I want to. Okay? He might have been everything to me decades ago, but it’s not even fair of me to ask him to be that person now. He’s probably not, probably never will be, and I’ve just got to deal with it. Because he has every right to be different. I just gotta get used to it.”

Natasha and Sam both blink.

“I didn’t think you realized that,” Natasha finally says. “Then what is your problem with him?”

Steve smiles bitterly, tensing. “Just because I know that doesn’t mean that I don’t still want my world back.” 

“I think there’s something you may not know,” Sam tells him.


End file.
